Not Going Solar Today

Not Going Solar Today

Time to take a break from politics and talk about day-to-day decisions and the “Green Revolution.”

As befits a person of my age and political proclivities, I wander through Facebook from time to time. As I was perusing the different posts, checking on friends, calling out ridiculous alt-right claims, cheering the ones that support my view, and making sure the lost dogs find their way home; I noticed a paid ad for solar panels.  

“Set yourself free from the power companies,” they said, “zero money up front.”  

Now I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night (with or without solar power.)  I knew that the ad was too good to be true, but I wanted to understand how solar power works on homes and with the existing power grid, and what better way to find out than to reach out for information. And, Jenn and I would like to find a way to be more “green,” becoming a renewable power provider, rather than (here in Ohio) a natural gas and coal user.

The salesman came over, a nice young man from a nearby community, and took us through the process of solar energy.  With enough panels, he said, you can provide energy for one hundred percent of your needs. By producing more than you need during the daytime, putting the excess out on the power grid, you offset the amount used from the power grid at night: make enough in the summer months when the solar heating is at the greatest, and offset the winter months when the sun is lower in the sky and shining on the roof less.

Of course it isn’t cheap, it’s a big capital expense.  But the cost of panels, connections and installation are offset by: “THE END OF ELECTRIC BILLS.”  Here’s the pitch:  trade electric bills for capital cost financing for five to eight years. After that, you have freedom from the electric company.

It’s a fascinating process. The panels are arrayed on the roof section with the most exposure, in our case, a full southern face.  They are linked together to an inverter that translates the DC electric current produced by the panels to the AC current needed by the house.  The AC is run into a special electric meter provided by the power company, measuring both the amount produced by the panels, and the amount used by the house. If there is more power made than used, that power is credited to the house from the electric grid.  Think of running the electric meter backward and forward.

So we were excited when he called back with our “personal home plan.”  Jenn and I did some independent investigation showing that the likely cost of powering the entire electric use for our house would be about $47000 in capital costs. I was fascinated to see what the bottom line would be from my chosen company.

I had a foreshadowing of issues to come from the phone call before the meeting, “I’m bringing my sales manager along with me if that’s OK.”  It was even more shadowy, when the nice young man pulled out the “flip book” with pictures and quizzes, taking us through a full presentation of much of the information we talked about the week before.  I felt like I was no longer “going green;” instead it was the dreaded “window guy” or the kid selling Cutco knives.

But Jenn and I slogged through it with him; maybe the young guy had to impress his equally young boss. We waited an hour for the bottom line, those last few pages that would tell we wanted to know.

The big excitement – after tax credits it was only a $22,000 capital cost.  That was great, we would definitely be interested, even if for a few years we had to pay our “electric bill plus.”  We wanted to be independent, and we were willing to pay for it.

Then the first big disappointment – “.,,our specially designed plan would provide sixty percent of our electric needs for the year.”  Sixty percent – so we aren’t “free” from the electric grid at all, in fact we are still totally dependent.  “Well,” the manager said, “if we look at the potential increases in the cost of electricity projected over the next ten years, this will save you money.” But that was only a small part of our goal:  we wanted to become a renewable power source, not a lesser dirty power consumer.  $22,000 for sixty percent on our little 1800 square foot house with no trees:  that’s not a great deal at all.

The second big disappointment – the capital cost of putting our “sixty percent” system in place, would cost more than our current power bill, and then we would have to pay for the forty percent of additional power we needed.  Twelve years of increased cost, and at the end, still only making sixty percent.

We pressed them for a one hundred percent solution, but they really didn’t want to deal with that.  They said the power company wouldn’t let them do one hundred percent, and skimmed over the cost of ninety-five percent with an additional twenty panels. It must not have been part of their “shtick,” or they guessed that we wouldn’t pay the cost.  They never gave us a chance to find out.  They guessed wrong, it was sixty percent, not the overall cost, that was the problem.

Our young salesman got irritated, and the young boss closed his computer.  They thanked us for saying “no” rather than wasting their time, but it was clear that they felt like we did.

So we aren’t going to get solar energy – at least from the two young men who pitched us today.  But we will keep our “toes” in the solar field, maybe someone else can help us “go green.”

I’ll keep checking on Facebook.